10. Familiar, But Not the Same #2
And for one fleeting second something cold slipped into her chest.
This was his wife.
The woman he had married.
The woman who had given him Zara.
A history she could never compete with no matter how strong the connection between them felt.
Aniyah stepped back quietly. “I should go,” she murmured.
Trevor’s head turned slightly.
“Aniyah, wait—” But she was already moving down the walkway toward the street, her coat pulled tighter around her as she disappeared beyond the reach of the porch light. Trevor watched the darkness swallow her figure. He would call her the moment he got home. He turned back to Katelyn slowly.
Whatever softness had flickered across his face moments earlier was gone.
“You really thought you could walk your ass back up here and claim your family like we were on fucking layaway?”
The tears stopped falling from Katelyn’s face almost instantly. Go figure. Katelyn blinked, the fragile expression dissolving so quickly it was almost impressive.
“You’ve lost your mind.” Trevor shook his head once. “I don’t want anything to do with you. Let me guess. Your boy got engaged and suddenly you remembered you had a husband. ”
Katelyn rolled her eyes in response feeling like a fool.
“Why did I even bother?” she muttered. “Clearly you’ve downgraded.” Her gaze flicked toward the dark street where Aniyah had disappeared.
“What is it, Trevor? Couldn’t get another bad bitch so you settled for the scarred up mute?”
“Enough.” Nina stepped forward. Her voice carried the unmistakable weight of someone who had been patient long enough.
“Katelyn, you need to leave,” she said calmly. “Nobody here wants you around and you’re not about to stand out here arguing with my brother on the street.” The front door opened again behind them. Angelou stepped onto the porch, tall and imposing as he glanced between them.
“Babe, is everything?—”
Nina lifted a hand without turning around.
“Give me a minute.”
Angelou closed his mouth immediately. Nina descended one step, stopping just high enough above Katelyn that the power dynamic remained exactly where she wanted it.
“You wanted to run around New York acting like you were single instead of being there for your family,” she said evenly. “That was your choice.” Her voice hardened. “You made your bed. Lay in it.”
Katelyn scoffed under her breath. Nina leaned slightly closer.
“And before you fix your mouth to say anything about Aniyah again, understand something very clearly.” Her eyes darkened. “She is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen in my life. Inside and out.”
Katelyn opened her mouth to protest. Nina cut her off without hesitation.
“So a woman who likes to cosplay Blackness when it’s convenient should probably think very carefully before criticizing someone who actually lives it.
” The silence that followed crackled like static in the winter air.
“Now get the fuck off my father-in-law’s porch before Zara comes looking for her father.
” She stepped back, turning to look at Trevor.
“Trevor, go back in the house. Angelou and I will handle the trash.”
Trevor looked at Katelyn one last time.
“Don’t you ever speak on Aniyah again. You’re dead to this family.” Trevor said before stepping fully into the house, closing the door behind him was symbolic for his chapter with Katelyn that was done forever.
Inside, warmth wrapped around him immediately.
The scent of cinnamon, roasted meat, and hot chocolate lingered in the air, and somewhere in the living room the television hummed softly beneath the chorus of children laughing.
The shift from confrontation to comfort was almost disorienting.
For a moment Trevor simply stood there in the entryway, letting the quiet settle in his chest. Just minutes ago, Katelyn had been standing on that stoop crying and begging for forgiveness.
Now the house felt exactly the way it always had. Full. Alive. Safe.
His gaze drifted toward the living room where Zara sat cross-legged on the floor with Imani, Matthew, and Kennedy.
The three-year-olds had built some sort of chaotic toy fortress out of blocks and plastic animals, and Zara was laughing so hard she could barely explain whatever rule they had just invented.
The sound filled his chest in a way that surprised him.
He had thought seeing Katelyn tonight might reopen something in him.
Something old. Something tender. The way thinking about his mother sometimes still did. But there was nothing.
No ache.
No longing.
No pull toward the past. Instead, his mind wandered somewhere entirely different.
Aniyah’s laugh. The warmth of her body pressed against his on the porch minutes earlier.
The way her voice had softened last night when they stayed on the phone until three in the morning talking about everything from childhood memories to whether pineapple belonged on pizza.
The way she had gone quiet and blushed when he called her beautiful.
Trevor washed his hands at the kitchen sink, the warm water running over his fingers as he stared at the tile for a moment.
Then he stepped into the living room.
“Superstar,” he called gently. Zara looked up instantly.
“Daddy!”
Her curls bounced as she ran over to him, wrapping her arms around his waist with all the momentum of a seven-year-old who had not yet learned to approach anyone slowly.
Trevor scooped her up, kissing her forehead.
“We’re heading home,” he told her softly. Her face scrunched in disagreement.
“But Papa said I could stay tonight.” Right on cue, Leon appeared from the hallway with the quiet confidence of a grandfather who had already made up his mind.
“That’s correct,” Leon said warmly. “We’re watching Frosty the Snowman and making another round of hot chocolate.” Trevor laughed under his breath.
“Well, I guess I lost that vote.” Zara grinned triumphantly. He kissed her forehead again.
“I love you, Superstar. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I love you too.”
Trevor set her down and grabbed his coat from the chair near the door. Angelou and Jackson stood near the hallway talking quietly, looking up as he approached. Angelou leaned against the wall, arms folded across his chest.
“You good?” he asked. Trevor nodded slowly.
“Better than I thought I would be.”
Jackson studied his face carefully, the same way he had when Trevor was younger and tried to pretend something hadn’t bothered him .
“You know you don’t have to front with us,” Jackson said calmly.
Trevor chuckled.
“I’m not frontin’. Last year I probably would’ve been hurt. Today, it felt like I had to get rid of a rodent.” He shrugged lightly. “Katelyn is dead to me now.”
Angelou tilted his head slightly.
“And the teacher?”
Trevor’s smile crept in despite himself.
“She’s not the teacher,” he said. “She’s Aniyah.” Jackson exchanged a glance with Angelou.
“You sure about this?” Jackson asked. Trevor met his brother’s eyes.
“Yeah.”
Angelou pushed off the wall slowly. “You know what I’m about to say,” he said.
Trevor raised an eyebrow in question. He was used to getting lectures from his brothers and it looked like tonight wouldn’t be any different.
“If you’re not sure,” Angelou continued, “leave that woman exactly where she is. Don’t drag her into something you haven’t sorted out yet.” Trevor didn’t hesitate to respond.
“I’m sure.”
Jackson nodded once.
“Well then,” he said, stepping aside. “Go get your girl.”
Angelou grinned with pride because he hadn’t seen his brother look this light in a long time and that was the best Christmas gift he could receive.
“That’s my little brother.”
Trevor laughed under his breath and headed for the door. The cold night air greeted him again the moment he stepped outside again. Katelyn was long gone and he hoped, for her sake, that it stayed that way.
The porch light cast long shadows across the walkway as he moved toward his car, his breath fogging faintly in front of him.
Trevor stepped out onto the sidewalk and pulled his coat tighter against the cold, the quiet of the street settling around him now that the house behind him had gone muffled with walls and warmth.
A few porch lights glowed along the block, wreaths swaying gently in the winter wind, but the space where Aniyah had disappeared only minutes earlier felt strangely empty.
He slid into his car and sat there for a moment, hands resting on the steering wheel while the engine idled low beneath him.
His mind replayed the porch in pieces.
Aniyah’s laughter from dinner.
Her hand against the center of his back when Katelyn started talking, anchoring him in the moment with her support..
The warmth of her body against his when they kissed.
Then the way she had stepped back when she thought there was more to the moment.
The way she had quietly said she should go and quickly disappeared into the night.
He exhaled slowly.
Forty-five minutes later he was still sitting in the driver’s seat, parked outside his own house, staring at the phone in his hand like it held a decision he didn’t want to make wrong.
He dialed before he could think himself out of it.
It rang once.
Twice.
Then her voice came through.
“Hello.” It was quieter now and he could tell she was on guard.
Trevor leaned back in the seat, eyes lifting briefly toward the dark sky above the windshield.
“What’s wrong?” he asked gently.
There was a pause long enough that he could picture her standing somewhere inside that condo, pacing slowly across the hardwood floors with her arms folded tight across her chest.
“Maybe we’re moving too fast,” Aniyah said softly. “Maybe we should slow down. You have a lot on your plate and I don’t want to jeopardize that.”
Trevor closed his eyes briefly.
Of course she would think about it like this.
Of course she would try to protect him from something he hadn’t asked for protection from.
“I think I should go,” she added quietly.
He stayed silent just long enough for her to shift on the other end of the line. Then he spoke.
“I’m about to pull up.”
There was a beat.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
The sound of his car shifting into gear filled the space between them as he eased away from the curb.
“Trevor—”
“What I need to say to you isn’t something I’m doing over the phone,” he continued calmly. “I need to say it where I can see your face, so you don’t go making up theories and acting like a brat.”
Her tone sharpened immediately.
“Who exactly do you think you’re talking to?”
Trevor smiled slowly at the sound of her attitude, “You.”
Silence stretched between them, thick with the tension that had been simmering between them since that porch.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve tonight,” she said finally.
“I do.”
“Trevor—”
“I’m pulling up,” he repeated. “You can either come downstairs like the grown woman I know you are…”
He let the rest hang there for a second .
“…or I can come up there and knock on your door until you do.”
Her breath came out through the phone in a sharp huff.
“You are unbelievable.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
Another quiet beat followed.
“You’re ridiculous,” she muttered.
“And yet you’re still on the phone with me.”
That earned him another exhale.
“Say whatever you need to say and go,” she replied finally.
The line went dead.
Trevor stared at the screen for a second before letting out a low laugh. Aniyah Henderson had just hung up on him. The adrenaline buzzing through his chest had nothing to do with irritation.
It was her.
That woman had the nerve to challenge him, push him, snap back without hesitation like she wasn’t the least bit intimidated by him at all.
The truth sitting squarely in his chest was that he loved that shit. He pulled onto the road, city lights sliding past the windshield as he headed toward the shoreline. Because if Aniyah thought she could dismiss him that easily tonight, she was about to learn something very important.
Trevor Porter wasn’t the kind of man who walked away from something that felt this right.
Not now.
Not ever .